As of this writing, both Fetterman and Shapiro have won their contests.
I live in Central PA and am an elected voting official for my county. As such, I can say some things that the average Pennsylvanian might not realize.
The presiding “Judge” for a given precinct is elected. The gotcha is that sometimes there is absolutely nobody running, and a single write-in vote can be enough to “win” the election. Guess how I know?
Even though someone is “elected,” someone else may perform those duties.
The “Judge” has to assemble their group of poll workers, contacting each of them themselves.
A poll worker may not live in the same precinct they are working in if the “Judge” can’t find anyone IN the precinct willing to work. The BOE only helps if the judge can’t find enough people to man the polling place on their own.
In my precinct, not enough Democrats are interestedin working, so Republicans fill slots theoretically for a Democrat.
Given all that, I can say that — in MY precinct at least — the tabulator was not connected to the internet — although everything is recorded on thumb drives that are kept separate from the tabulator during the return to the elections office. Also, there was no available wi-fi during polling, so that was moot in my precinct.
Training — in my county at least — is inadequate for the task at hand if one is a newbie. It also seems that each county must develop its own training materials.
Now, getting to the election itself.
Fetterman’s own Hometown Newspaper endorsed his opponent.
Why would anyone vote for a person who routinely dresses like a Hell’s Angels reject, who’s had a stroke (and who needed closed-captioning to debate), who slurred some statements into unintelligibility, and who was — time and again– the only person on the parole board to vote to let dangerous felons out of jail, and who chased and held an innocent, unarmed (black) jogger with a shotgun because he thought he heard gunfire (and has NEVER apologized for doing so) is beyond me.
He never called out Biden for saying he wanted to close all coal-powered electrical plants when PA is a coal-producing state.
Yet Fetterman seems to be winning as of this writing. The margin is slim, but…
The pandemic saw the destruction of a number of small businesses in the county. There is no more taxi service in State College (home to Penn State), where there were two companies in operation before it, plus Uber and Lyft drivers. Likewise, towing companies have diminished severely. Liberal paranoia about the Wuhan flu closed Penn State, killed a number of restaurants, and was generally an overblown PITA. Geisinger medical sites are STILL demanding masks to enter their kingdom, and Fetterman and Shapiro are okay with that. Should we look for more of the same?
I know that Pittsburgh, Philly, and Harrisburg are all liberal strongholds (along with State College, where students outnumber actual residents.) But has all common sense escaped these people?
Remember this headline from the acting (Democratic) Secy of State?
Why (how) was the race determined so quickly?
Is it simply more “orange man bad” TDS infecting their reason-deprived minds out there in the liberal enclaves?
The Democrat party has lost Hispanic and black voter support since the 2020 election, two essential demographics the party needs to retain its fragile, intersectional coalition, according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) poll released Monday.
In August, Hispanic voters favored Democrats by 11 points. That lead has been cut to five points in October.
In just four years, Democrats have lost Hispanic support by 26 points.
The margin of five points in October is far less than in 2020 when President Joe Biden was favored over former President Donald Trump by 28 points. In 2018, Hispanics favored Democrats by 31 points.
A similar exodus from the Democrat party is seen among black voters. The poll found 17 percent of black voters would vote for a Republican in 2022. In 2020, that number was only eight percent, a nine point swing in two years. Eight percent also supported Republicans in 2018.
Black voters strongly oppose the Democrats’ policy of chain migration that is helping to cut Americans’ wages and raise their rents, according to data provided by Rasmussen Reports. https://t.co/LdF0b3zCVF
The WSJpoll sampled 1,500 people from October 22-26, including 180 black voters with a 7.3 margin of error and 400 Hispanic voters with a 4.9 margin of error.
“It is wholly possible that Republicans reach a new high water mark among both African-Americans and Hispanic voters in this election,” Biden’s lead pollster, Tony Fabrizio, told the outlet.
The polling is notable because the Democrat Party has constantly won the black vote by huge margins since the 1960s when Democrat former President Lyndon Johnson from a southern state was able to solidify black support successfully. Modern-day Democrats have tried to bring Hispanic voters into their fold on the basis of forming an intersectional coalition among so-called marginalized groups.
But with the rise of crime, illegal immigration, and inflation, which disproportionally impacts less financially wealthy citizens, black and Hispanic voters have moved towards the Republicans.
The Democrats have launched two cringeworthy ads targeting Hispanic voters as the party continues to lose favor with that demographic. https://t.co/47pChS0LkB
Monday’s polling numbers suggest Republicans will have significant gains in the 2022 midterm elections. Many races will likely be decided by one percentage point. Black and Hispanic voters could play a huge role in which party controls Congress.
Women are also leaving the Democrat party. Polling revealed last week that white suburban women have moved 27 points away from Democrats since August and now favor Republicans by 15 points. The demographic of white suburban women represent 20 percent of the electorate.
When CNN Fact checks Xiden and calls BS, you KNOW he’s in trouble.
President Joe Biden has been back on the campaign trail, traveling in October and early November to deliver his pitch for electing Democrats in the midterm elections on Tuesday.
Biden’s pitch has included claims that are false, misleading or lacking important context. (As always, we take no position on the accuracy of his subjective arguments.) Here is a fact-check look at nine of his recent statements.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Social Security, part 1
Biden said at a Democratic fundraiser in Pennsylvania last week: “On our watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are going to get the biggest increase in their Social Security checks they’ve gotten.” He has also touted the 2023 increase in Social Security payments at other recent events.
The White House deleted a Tuesday tweet that delivered an especially triumphant version of Biden’s boast, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged Wednesday that the tweet was lacking “context.”
That now-deleted Tuesday tweet reads: “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.”
Biden said at a Democratic rally in Florida on Tuesday: “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.”
The claim that the 2023 increase to Social Security payments is the first in 10 years is false. In reality, there has been a cost-of-living increase every year from 2017 onward. There was also an increase every year from 2012 through 2015 before the payment level was kept flat in 2016 because of a lack of inflation.
The context around this Biden remark in Florida suggests he might have botched his repeat campaign line about Social Security payments increasing at the same time asMedicare premiums are declining.
Regardless of his intentions, though, he was wrong.
A new corporate tax
Biden repeatedly suggested in speeches in October and early November that a new law he signed in August, the Inflation Reduction Act, will stop the practice of successful corporations paying no federal corporate income tax. Biden made the claim explicitly in a tweet last week: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.”
But “puts an end to this” is an exaggeration. The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the number of companies on the list of non-payers, but the law will not eliminate the list entirely.
That’s because the law’s new 15% alternative corporate minimum tax, on the “book income” companies report to investors, only applies to companies with at least $1 billion in average annual income. (There are lots of nuances; you can read more specifics here.) According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the think tank that in 2021 published the list of 55 large and profitable companies that avoided paying any federal income tax in their previous fiscal year, only 14 of these 55 companies reported having US pre-tax income of at least $1 billion in that year.
In other words, there will clearly still be some large and profitable corporations paying no federal income tax even after the minimum tax takes effect in 2023. The exact number is not yet known.
Matthew Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said in a Thursday email that the new tax is “an important step forward from the status quo” and that it will raise substantial revenue, but he also said: “I wouldn’t want to assert that the minimum tax will end the phenomenon of zero-tax profitable corporations. A more accurate phrasing would be to say that the minimum tax will *help* ensure that *the most profitable* corporations pay at least some federal income tax.”
The debt and the deficit
Biden said at the Tuesday rally in Florida: “Look, you know, you can hear it from Republicans, ‘My God, that big-spending Democrat Biden. Man, he’s taken us in debt.’ Well, guess what? I reduced the federal deficit this year by $1 trillion $400 billion. One trillion 400 billion dollars. The most in all American history. No one has ever reduced the debt that much. We cut the federal debt in half.”
Biden offered a similar narrative at a Thursday rally in New Mexico, this time saying, “We cut the federal debt in half. A fact.”
There are two significant problems here.
First: Biden conflated the debt and the deficit, which are two different things. It’s not true that Biden has “cut the federal debt in half”; the federal debt (total borrowing plus interest owed) has continued to rise under Biden, exceeding $31 trillion for the first time this October. Rather, it’s the federal deficit – the annual difference between spending and revenue – that was cut in half between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022.
Second, it’s highly questionable how much credit Biden deserves for even the reduction in the deficit. Biden doesn’t mention that the primary reason the deficit plummeted in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 was that it had skyrocketed to a record high in 2020 because of emergency pandemic relief spending. It then fell as expected as the spending expired as planned.
“On net, the policies of the administration have increased the deficit, not reduced it.”
Dan White, senior director of economic research at Moody’s Analytics – an economics firm whose assessments Biden has repeatedly cited during his presidency – told CNN’s Matt Egan in October: “On net, the policies of the administration have increased the deficit, not reduced it.” The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group, says the administration’s own actions have significantly worsened the deficit picture. (David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds, told Egan that the Biden administration does deserve credit for the economic recovery that has boosted tax revenues.)
The unemployment rate
Biden said at the Florida rally on Tuesday: “Unemployment is down from 6.5 to 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years.” He said at the New Mexico rally on Thursday: “Unemployment rate is 3.5% – the lowest it’s been in 50 years.”
But Biden didn’t acknowledge that September’s 3.5% unemployment rate was actually a tie for the lowest in 50 years – a tie, specifically, with three months of Trump’s administration, in late 2019 and early 2020. Since Biden uses these campaign speeches to favorably compare his own record to Trump’s record, that omission is significant.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in October; that number was revealed on Friday, after these Biden comments. The rate was 6.4% in January 2021, the month Biden took office.
Biden’s student debt policy
During an on-camera discussion conducted by progressive organization NowThis News and published online in late October, Biden told young activists that they “probably are aware, I just signed a law” on student debt forgiveness that is being challenged by Republicans. He added: “It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two, and it’s in effect.”
Biden’s claims are false.
He created his student debt forgiveness initiative through executive action, not through legislation, so he didn’t sign a law and didn’t get it passed by any margin. Since Republicans opposed to the initiative, including those challenging the initiative in court, have called it unlawful precisely because it wasn’t passed by Congress, the distinction between a law and an executive action is a highly pertinent fact here.
A White House official told CNN that Biden was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, the law narrowly passed by the Senate in August; the official said the Inflation Reduction Act created “room for other crucial programs” by bringing down the deficit. But Biden certainly did not make it clear that he was talking about anything other than the student debt initiative.
Gas prices
Biden correctly noted on various occasions in October that gas prices have declined substantially since their June 2022 peak – though, as always, it’s important to note that presidents have a limited impact on gas prices. But in an economic speech in New York last week, Biden said, “Today, the most common price of gas in America is $3.39 – down from over $5 when I took office.”
The most common price for a gallon of regular gas on the day Biden was inaugurated, January 20, 2021, was $2.39 — less than half the price Biden was claiming.
Biden’s claim that the most common gas price when he took office was more than $5 is not even close to accurate. The most common price for a gallon of regular gas on the day he was inaugurated, January 20, 2021, was $2.39, according to data provided to CNN by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. In other words, Biden made it sound like gas prices had fallen significantly during his presidency when they had actually increased significantly.
In other recent remarks, Biden has discussed the state of gas prices in relation to the summer peak of more than $5 per gallon, not in relation to when he took office. Regardless, the comment last week was the second this fall in which Biden inaccurately described the price of gas – both times in a way that made it sound more impressive.
Biden has revived a claim that was debunked more than 20 months ago by The Washington Post and then CNN. At least twice in October, he boasted that he traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“I’ve spent more time with Xi Jinping of China than any world leader has, when I was Vice President all the way through to now. Over 78 hours with him alone. Eight – nine of those hours on the phone and the others in person, traveling 17,000 miles with him around the world, in China and the United States,” he told a Democratic gathering in Oregon in mid-October.
Biden made the number even bigger during a speech on student debt in New Mexico on Thursday, saying, “I traveled 17-, 18,000 miles with him.”
The claim is false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that the two men often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of his flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which, obviously, Xi was not with him.
A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with” Xi as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of a boast about how well he knows Xi – and Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.
The Trump tax cuts
Biden claimed at the Thursday rally in New Mexico that under Trump, Republicans passed a $2 trillion tax cut that “affected only the top 1% of the American public.”
Biden correctly said in various October remarks that the Trump tax cut law was particularly beneficial to the wealthy, but he went too far here. It’s not true that the Trump policy “only” affected the top 1%.
The Tax Policy Center think tank found in early 2018 that Trump’s law “will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states.” The think tank estimated that “between 60 and 76 percent of taxpayers in every state will receive a tax cut.”
And in April 2019, tax-preparation company H&R Block said two-thirds of its returning customers had indeed paid less in tax that year than they did the year prior, The New York Times reported in an article headlined “Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut.”
The Tax Policy Center did find in early 2018 that people at the top would get by far the biggest benefits from Trump’s law. Specifically, the think tank found that the top 1% of earners would get an average 3.4% increase in after-tax 2018 income – versus an average 1.6% income increase for people in the middle quintile, an average 1.2% income increase for people in the quintile below that and just an average 0.4% income increase for people in the lowest quintile.
The think tank also found that the top 1% of earners would get more than 20% of the income benefits from the law, a bigger share than the bottom 60% of earners combined.
The distribution could get even more skewed after 2025, when the law’s individual tax cuts will expire if not extended by Congress and the president. If there is no extension – and, therefore, the law’s permanent corporate tax cut remains in place without the individual tax cuts – the Tax Policy Center has estimated that, in 2027, the top 1% will get 83% of the benefits from the law.
But that’s a possibility about the future. Biden claimed, in the past tense, that the law “affected” only the top 1%.
That’s inaccurate.
This wasn’t the first time Biden overstated his point about the Trump tax cuts. The Washington Post fact-checked him in 2019, for example, when he claimed “all of it” went to the ultra-rich and corporations.
Apparently the rank-and-file Democrats are realizing the Xiden regime is not doing them any favors, despite their promises.
Here’s a just-released addition that shows how deep in the doo-doo Biden and the Democratic Party are:
“Responding to misinformation is my day job. My night job is RUNNING ELECTIONS.” – CISA document 6/22/22. Name redacted, emphasis added.
Here is a disturbing story. It demonstrates intrigue, corruption, and disdain for American principles at the highest level.
Perhaps the saddest thing about this story is that you probably won’t be surprised. Especially if you’ve been paying attention for the past few years.
The story is this: Twitter and other social media platforms have been cozy with the Department of Homeland Security to squelch what DHS calls “misinformation,” “disinformation” and “malinformation,” or “MDM,” according to an investigative report published Monday by The Intercept.
Job one for Musk was to not only fire CEO Parag Agrawal but also Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and the individual responsible for booting former President Donald Trump off the platform and for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in the run-up to the 2020 election.
You probably remember a few months ago when DHS rolled out what it called its Disinformation Governance Board, designed to go after “MDM” on social media. A firestorm of bad publicity meant the Biden administration had to quickly yank it offstage.
But the concept is still around and Gadde has been part of it.
Gadde is a member of an advisory committee of the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In June, the committee put out a report that essentially outlined a need to get around the First Amendment to stop “MDM” since it “poses a significant risk to critical functions like elections, public health, financial services and emergency response.”
Also, The Intercept reported on DHS documents saying the agency is going after “MDM” on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”
In other words, DHS wants to push the Biden administration’s line on many of the controversies Americans might be discussing on social media, and attack or suppress other views that oppose it.
And Twitter has been right there in the middle of it.
Lee Fang, one of the authors of The Intercept article, tweeted that Gadde had met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship and, along with Facebook, Twitter “created special portals for the government to rapidly request takedowns of content.”
The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS & private sector. Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk last week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft exec texted DHS: “Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t”
In March, top officials of Twitter and JPMorgan Chase met with Laura Dehmlow, section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. Dehmlow said subversive information on the internet could undercut support for the U.S. government, according to notes of the meeting reported by The Intercept.
In a statement for The Intercept report, a Twitter representative said the company does not “coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions,” following, rather, its own rules in such situations.
Still, Twitter joined other tech companies in monthly meetings with the FBI, CISA and other government agencies to determine how to handle misinformation leading up to the 2020 elections, according to NBC News.
In 2018, DHS began notifying social media companies of what it described as voting disinformation appearing on their platforms. The following year, DHS developed the Foreign Influence and Interference Branch which morphed in 2020 to track communication regarding COVID-19, The Intercept said.
Varied U.S. intelligence agencies moderated social media surrounding the 2020 election and leading up to the November voting there were regular emails among officials of Twitter, DHS and the Center for Internet Security regarding takedown procedures for social media postings.
And while the Disinformation Governance Board was scrapped, DHS in August published a document titled “DHS Needs a Unified Strategy to Counter Disinformation Campaigns.”
In it, DHS intones “such campaigns may aim to erode public trust in our government and the Nation’s critical infrastructure sectors, negatively affect public discourse, or even sway elections.”
Sway elections? You think? Hasn’t that been a major aim of Silicon Valley?
Of course, DHS does not address a key foundational principle which allows for pesky ideas that the Department of Homeland Security considers “MDM.”
It’s contained in the document that proclaims, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Founders, ever conscious of man’s corruption, knew what’s now called “MDM” would be protected by the First Amendment, but, as in other parts of the Bill of Rights, they also knew liberty was more important than government convenience.
Twitter, as The Intercept report shows, clearly has been involved in the federal government’s attempts to outsource censorship and suppression of dissent.
Musk, Twitter’s new owner, has publicly declared himself to be a “free speech absolutist.”
Clearly, something has to give.
There’s no telling where the company will go now that Musk is in charge, but he was right about one of his first major personnel moves.
America’s corrupt political class — Democrat and Republican — are looking to put the last two years of mask mandates, school closures, mandatory shots, and COVID lockdowns in the rear-view mirror. They don’t want to be voted out of office for destroying your life. That would be called accountability and there’s nothing that America’s ruling-class-pretending-to-be-public-servants dislike more than accountability.
Instead, they want a truce without counting the costs. They want an amnesty without judgment — and certainly without hearings. They want you to grant them toxic forgiveness.
That’s why the ruling class sent out its useful idiots — fourth-rate people like David French and Emily Oster — to see if, you know, the American public was in the mood toforgive them right before the next election. If you are ever asked the name of the very last person on earth to believe that the COVID vaccines work, you can tell them: it was David French.
Hey—sorry you lost your job b/c of the vax that doesn’t work and your grandmother died alone and you couldn’t have a funeral and your brother’s business was needlessly destroyed and your kids have weird heart problems—but let’s just admit we were all wrong and call a truce, eh?
It’s too bad we shut the entire economy down & took on tyrannical powers that have never been used before in this country—looking back, you should have been able to go to church and use public parks while we let people riot in the streets—but it was a confusing time for everyone.
Hey, I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives.
OK, yes we said unvaccinated people should die & not get healthcare while never questioning Big Pharma once but we are compassionate people which is why even though we shut down the entire economy we also bankrupted the nation & caused inflation. You’re welcome! Let’s be friends.
Needless to say, our politicians and public health officials really want you to forget that they took America right to the edge of the abyss.
In fact, they have turned America into the Banana Republic of Biden — where your civil rights might exist depending on which judge you get in your state, and what you last posted on your social media accounts.
It’s no surprise that these pleas for amnesty have been published after the midterm polls showed a “red wave” forming. If the polls had gone the other way, Biden’s FBI would probably be wrangling you onto a boxcar right now headed for a FEMA camp — and you know it.
You know you’re in trouble when your own hometown newspaper endorses the other guy.
John Fetterman’s hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has endorsed Republican Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania senate race.
Newspaper endorsements rarely count for much unless they make a surprising choice that makes people take notice.
This is one of those cases.
Mr. Fetterman’s life experience and maturity are also concerns. He has lived off his family’s money for much of his life. That has allowed him to do some good things, including mentoring disadvantaged young people and working to improve community policing and economic development in Braddock.
That work, along with his six-foot-eight frame, shaved head and tattoos, attracted national media attention. Still, Mr. Fetterman, despite his hoodies and shorts, has little experience in holding real jobs or facing the problems of working people.
In 2013, as the mayor of Braddock, Mr. Fetterman, after hearing gunshots, pulled a shotgun on an unarmed Black jogger. It was, we believe, an honest mistake. Still, it’s troubling that Mr. Fetterman never apologized for it. And during Tuesday’s debate, confronted with his 2018 statement that he didn’t support fracking, Mr. Fetterman still said, with a straight face, that he always supported fracking…
Unlike most Republican politicians, candidate Oz spent a lot of time in poor urban neighborhoods, talking to people and, most important, listening and learning. He is more moderate on some issues than portrayed.
We don’t believe he will be a stooge for the far right or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. We hope that Mr. Oz will disappoint them and serve in the Pennsylvania tradition of moderate Republicans, such U.S. Sens. John Heinz, Hugh Scott, and Richard Schweiker.
How embarrassing for John Fetterman.
“All candidates for a major elected office should release their medical records, as did Mr. Oz. If you want privacy, don’t run for public office.”https://t.co/cnCtm4a5SN
“This graphic was never meant to go on air—the numbers were only part of a test.”
The television station that used to employ Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake on Oct. 27 called the race for Lake’s opponent, despite the fact the election won’t be held until November.
A graphic displayed by Fox 10, the TV station, said that Katie Hobbs, the Democrat nominee, won the election with 53 percent of the vote.
The graphic was shown during a newscast at about 5:50 p.m. local time.
Fox 10 acknowledged airing the graphic, blaming what happened on a test gone wrong.
The graphic showed “test results for the upcoming election,” the broadcaster said. “These were generated by the Associated Press which distributes results to clients.”
“This graphic was never meant to go on air—the numbers were only part of a test. The station has taken steps to make sure this cannot happen again,” it added.
Lake said the graphic may have been a retaliatory move because it happened shortly after she held a press conference urging reporters to do their due diligence to check claims by Arizona Democrats that a person who broke into Hobbs’ campaign office was linked to Lake.
State Rep. Jake Hoffman, a Republican, said in response that he would introduce a bill in the future addressing the situation.
“While I understand the need for internal planning by news stations, errors like this that are broadcast live to the public pose a legitimate threat to our Republic and serve only to undermine the confidence that Arizonans have in the integrity of their vote,” Hoffman said in a statement. “What if this had happened on election night of the day before the election? The impact to our democratic process would be devastating.”
The legislation would hold news outlets accountable should they interfere with Arizona’s election and/or disenfranchise Arizona voters like this in the future,” Hoffman said.
The midterm election is slated to take place on Nov. 8.
Early voting has already begun in Arizona.
Lake, 53, has never before held office. She worked for Fox 10, or KSAZ-TV, for 22 years before leaving in March 2021. She launched her campaign several months later.
Hobbs, 52, was elected Arizona secretary of state in 2018. Before that, she was part of the Arizona legislature.
W. Taylor comment, on Epoch Times:
“Either this is a deliberate misinformation campaign to fool people into not going to vote, or mailing in their ballots, or they just gave away the store. They somehow knew by how much the Democratic ballot counting operatives were going to overwhelm Kari Lake. Perhaps the DoJ told them since they’re going to ‘ensure election integrity.’ “
It’s hilarious when Liberal tactics backfire on them. This includes RINOs as well. McConnel has withdrawn funding of candidates in close races where they’ve criticized him. Seems like he’s shooting his (nominal) party in the foot.
DeSantis pointed out that Crist hadn’t been much interested in attending the meetings the last time he was in a legislative office. Like Fetterman, Crist made a fool of himself during the debate.
If Liberals can’t lie and cheat they can’t win.
Florida has not sold its soul to the devil. The Sunshine State still has free and fair elections, and the Democrat fraud in the state — that is still very real — cannot top the Republican vote in the state.
Florida, like Iowa and Ohio, was once a swing state. Today all three bellwether states are reliable Republican strongholds. The Democrats were not able to steal these important states.
On Thursday, Politico broke the news that Democrats are pulling out of Florida. The state is lost. They will put their money elsewhere.
Via Politico. (And you know it’s bad when Politico reports like this:)
National organizations and donors have all but abandoned their candidates — setting off fears that Florida is no longer viewed as competitive. That would have dire implications for the next presidential election.
Florida Democrats are bracing for a very bad night on Nov. 8.
Less than two weeks before the election, Democrats are signaling that key races are slipping away from them. They point to ominous signs and missed opportunities, including the party’s message on abortion rights and gun control that isn’t resonating and a lack of coordination between the campaigns of Rep. Val Demings, who is vying to unseat Sen. Marco Rubio, and Charlie Crist, who is challenging Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Most worrisome for Democrats, national organizations and donors have all but abandoned their candidates — setting off fears that Florida is no longer viewed as competitive.
That would have dire implications for the next presidential election.
And, of course, the democratic acting S-O-S of Pennsylvania is warning that:
Hmm. I wonder why? Do they need time to figure out how many votes they need to manufacture to install Hell’s Angels’ poster boy Fetterman as a Senator? Or (not Ben) Shapiro as Governor? After all, they’ve acknowledged they’ve lost Florida; they won’t be able to unseat DeSantis or Sen. Marco Rubio. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
And look at how the DSCC is whining on their ActBlue donations page:
If Republicans flip even ONE seat, they’ll win back the majority — donate before 11:59 P.M. to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Democrats fought hard and won back the Senate majority — but all of our wins depend on defending and expanding that majority this year. Everyone who cares about blocking the worst of the GOP agenda and making real Democratic change has to start the midterm fight now. If Republicans flip even ONE seat, they win back the majority and Mitch McConnell wins back his power, and right now, we’re already $7,289 short of our monthly goal and don’t have any room for error. Please, will you donate $25 right now to defend and expand the Democratic Senate majority?
We can’t allow Mitch McConnell and the GOP to run our country again.
New York – In Richmond County Supreme Court, Judge Ralph Porzio, has ruled that the vaccine mandates issued by the New York City Health Commissioner are unconstitutional and violate the separation of powers.
The ruling permits city employees to return to work effective immediately and orders back pay.
According to attorney Chad Laveglia, the judge ruled “the commissioner’s order mandating private and public employees get vaccinated was arbitrary and capricious.”
“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19,” the judge stated.
NY State Supreme Court reinstates all fired unvaccinated employees, orders backpay, says the state violated rights, acted arbitrary & capricious, notes:“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19.”https://t.co/nvOsWfa56Spic.twitter.com/WhH4wje2bQ
While Laveglia was representing members of the Dept. of Sanitation in New York (DSNY), this ruling will impact the FDNY, NYPD, Dept. of Corrections and all other city employees who were shut down and forced to resign for refusing to cave in to an experimental emergency use vaccine. The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on closures of firehouses in New York City that couldn’t remain open due to personnel shortages. The Gateway Pundit also reported on a mass exodus of NYPD officers; although this was not exclusively related to the vaccine, it does pose a serious problem when the department’s numbers were already impacted greatly by the forced resignations earlier on.
The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance.
The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance.
The defendants, of course, filed a Notice of Appeal. In New York, there are 62 courts, one for each county, representing the Supreme Court. Despite the name, the Supreme Court in New York is not the highest court. That position reigns with the New York Court of Appeals. It appears as though there is still the possibility of one last battle for the DSNY employees and Mr. Laveglia.
The City of New York is represented by the New York City Law Department. This means that the tax-payers of New York City are funding the fight to take away their own rights to work despite their personal decisions not to take an experimental vaccine that has numerous documented health implications in comparison to all other vaccines since the VAERS system began tracking adverse events.
“Did Supreme Court err in granting the petition, granting declaratory relief, and denying respondents’ cross-motion to dismiss, where, among other things, the petition is time-barred and the underlying employee vaccination requirements are entirely lawful and rational, as multiple courts have held”
In the decision from the Richmond Supreme Court, Judge Porizio writes:
“An administrative agency usurps the authority of the legislative branch when it promulgates a rule that the legislature did not delegate it the authority to make in the first instance“
As you read the following, specifically the bold print, remember that the New York City Law Department is expending tax payer dollars to appeal this decision while costing the DSNY employees exorbitant legal fees to fight the appeal. New York is no longer under a state of emergency, Joe Biden declared the pandemic over, and CDC guidelines for vaxxed vs unvaxxed are the same.
“It is clear that the Health Commissioner has the authority to issue public health mandates. No one is refuting that authority.
However, the Health Commissioner cannot create a new condition of employment for City employees. The Health Commissioner cannot prohibit an employee from reporting to work. The Health Commissioner cannot terminate employees. The Mayor cannot exempt certain employees from these orders. Executive Order No. 62 renders all of these vaccine mandates arbitrary and capricious. Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid19.
As of the day of this Decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. The Petitioners should not have been terminated for choosing not to protect themselves. We have learned through the course of the pandemic that the vaccine against Covid-19 is not absolute. Breakthrough cases occur, even for those who have been vaccinated and boosted. President Joseph Biden has said that the pandemic is over. The State of New York ended the Covid-19 state of emergency over a month ago.
As this Court stated in its decision in the Rivicci matter, this is not a commentary on the efficacy of vaccination, but about how we are treating our first responders, the ones who worked day-to-day through the height of the pandemic.They worked without protective gear. They were infected with Covid-19, creating natural immunity. They continued working full duty while their exemption requests were pending. They were terminated and are willing to come back to work for the City that cast them aside.
The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance. If it was about safety and public health, unvaccinated workers would have been placed on leave the moment the order was issued. If it was about safety and public health, the Health Commissioner would have issued city-wide mandates for vaccination for all residents. In a City with a nearly 80% vaccination rate, we shouldn’t be penalizing the people who showed up to work, at great risk to themselves and their families, while we were locked down.
Another company is calling it quits in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home city.
Outdoor active-wear brand Cotopaxi is closing its San Francisco store after only a year following rampant theft that left the store’s staff “terrified.”
The company’s founder, Davis Smith, announced the closing in a LinkedIn post Tuesday.
“It’s sad, but San Francisco appears to have descended into a city of chaos,” he wrote. “Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction.
“One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.”
Smith’s LinkedIn post featured two photos of broken and boarded-up windows.
Smith further outlined a pattern of property crimes, theft, and burglaries affecting his company’s San Francisco location in a Thursday interview with KABC-TV.
According to San Francisco Police Department data, overall crime in San Francisco is up 7.4 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year. But that number tells only part of the story.
In some districts of the city, crime was up over 20 percent. The data also includes only those crimes reported to the police; one would expect that as crime increases and law enforcement shows a general unwillingness or inability to act, reporting would die off even though crime is alive and well.
Moreover, the SFPD uses a “hierarchy rule,” so that in incidents involving multiple reported offenses, “only the highest offense is represented in the dataset.”
In other words, the only thing we can say for sure about crime in San Francisco is that the SFPD database doesn’t capture it all.
Smith’s post not only lamented the crime but the refusal of local officials to address it.
Smith is blaming city authorities and local law enforcement for inaction in the face of the neighborhood’s condition and is closing the store until the situation improves.
“Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction,” Smith continued.
“We opened a retail store a year ago on Hayes Street, the charming shopping district just blocks away from the famous Full House home,” he wrote. “Our first week there, our windows were smashed and thousands of dollars of product was stolen. We replaced the window, and it immediately happened again (four times). We replaced with window with plywood as we waited for a month+ to get a metal security gate installed (demand for those gates is creating huge delays).”
As a result, he said, the company was left with no choice but to shutter the location, one of 10 that had been operated by Cotopaxi. The company website lists the location as “temporarily closed,” but Smith didn’t sound optimistic about the chances that it would re-open any time soon.
Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them.
“As of today, we are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team. Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week.They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out. We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they’ll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens.
“Our team is terrified. They feel unsafe. Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them.”
The rule of law is fundamental to human flourishing. Without governmental authorities bearing their sword to the terror of bad actors, chaos ensues.
“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad,” Paul tells us in Romans. “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
That’s why, he says, we pay taxes — a point not lost on Smith.
“It’s impossible for a retail store to operate in these circumstances, especially when cities refuse to take any action (despite us paying taxes well above any other state we operate in),” he wrote. “The city recently announced a reduction of police presence in this neighborhood, despite mass-scale crime.”
Smith expressed his sorrow at closing a shop in a city he is fond of — but that’s when he made his most striking point:
“I grew up in Latin America and spent much of my adult life there, and I never felt this unsafe there. Something has to change in San Francisco.”
This comes from two separate articles in The Western Journal.
“Either this is a deliberate misinformation campaign to fool people into not going to vote, or mailing in their ballots, or they just gave away the store. They somehow knew by how much the Democratic ballot counting operatives were going to overwhelm Kari Lake. Perhaps the DoJ told them since they’re going to ‘ensure election integrity.’ “